Cheeze Castle

MAJIN Booster Packs｜How They Work, Contents & Future Plans In this video, I talk in more detail about one of the parts of MAJIN that I am particularly looking forward to: the booster packs. From the early packaging designs and different rarity grades to holder benefits, ideas for keeping the collection enjoyable over the long term, and our future plans, I explain the role that booster packs are intended to play within MAJIN. Booster Pack Mechanics & Rarity The booster packs come in several grades, including Special Grade, First Grade, Second Grade, and Third Grade. Each grade has different probabilities of containing rare weapons, items, special traits, and 1/1s. The highest tier, Special Grade, offers the best chances of obtaining particularly rare items, but the other grades still provide opportunities to pull something exceptionally valuable. Much like Pokémon cards, the excitement of not knowing what you will get until you open a pack is one of the main attractions of the system. Beyond the enjoyment of obtaining rare items, we also want booster packs to create additional value and possibilities within the collection. The excitement of pulling rare items also fits naturally with the speculative side of Web3 and its degens. However, with MAJIN, we do not want to rely on that aspect alone. We place importance on both the appeal of the collection itself and the mechanisms intended to support it over the long term. A Collection That Can Continue to Evolve In most conventional PFP collections, once you obtain a character, its appearance essentially stays the same. Even if you really like a character, looking at the same design for years can eventually make it feel less fresh. With MAJIN, we are therefore planning a system that allows collectors to incorporate weapons, items, and special traits obtained through booster packs into their own PFPs. Of course, customization is entirely optional. You can keep the original design exactly as it is, collect new items and experiment with different combinations, or sell something rare that you have obtained. The goal is to preserve some of the anticipation people experienced when first obtaining an NFT or waiting for its reveal, rather than having that excitement end after the initial mint. Through booster packs, we want to create a collection that continues to offer new discoveries and experiences even years later. MAJIN Utility & Long-Term Vision We aim to become more than just a digital collection by introducing mechanisms intended to provide economic value to holders. The concept involves our treasury and a tokenized investment fund, with the aim of providing holders with potential returns linked to the fund's performance. A simple way to imagine this is combining the enjoyment of collecting Pokémon cards with a system through which holders could receive financial returns from their holdings. Of course, this is only an analogy to explain the concept in simple terms. The idea behind MAJIN is to make the collection appealing both to people who simply enjoy collecting and to those who are interested in the underlying utility, without requiring everyone to approach it in the same way. Booster packs are initially planned to launch digitally, which is a natural fit for Web3. Looking further ahead, we also want to expand into physical trading cards, a TCG, retail booster packs, accessories, plushies, and other merchandise. Our long-term goal is to develop MAJIN beyond the digital space into an IP that people can enjoy in different forms. Weapons, Companions & Special Traits In the second half of the video, I mention several of the weapons, companions, and rare traits planned for the booster packs, including some of their names and underlying concepts. Among the weapons are the Deadly Umbrella, inspired by a carnivorous plant and containing a demon-like creature; the Living Sword, which has a living being inside it; the Spine Katana, which Fallen Angel creates by pulling out his own spine; and the Bone Whip, shaped like a spine and related to a rare female character. Other unusual weapons include the Giant Razor, Meat Gun, and Chain Sword. What makes these designs interesting is not just their unusual appearance, but also their individual concepts and connections to the MAJIN universe and its developing lore. As for companions, I talk about the Smoking Duck, a cute little duck that likes to smoke, along with a penguin, the Grenade Animal, a small creature inspired by a hand grenade, the Mushroom Dog, and the Shadow Demon. Grenade Animal is still a working name. The idea was inspired by the same principle as Pochita from Chainsaw Man: taking the characteristics of something dangerous or weapon-like and turning them into a cute creature. I also touch on rare races such as Albino and Majin, as well as special appearances including Chrome Skin and Mecha Suit. Many of these rare weapons, companions, and traits are intended to be obtainable primarily through Special Grade booster packs, with some having extremely low chances of appearing in other grades. With MAJIN, we want to move beyond variations based simply on hair colors, hats, or familiar accessories and instead focus on giving individual items their own distinctive concepts and designs. Even for relatively common items, we want to introduce designs that, as far as possible, have not already been seen throughout existing PFP collections. Booster packs bring together the enjoyment of opening packs, the freedom to customize your characters, and the opportunity to gradually discover more of the MAJIN universe. The intention is to create a collection whose appeal continues well beyond the moment you first obtain it. — Sōtō｜ソウトウ

New PFP

Scribble (SFW)

The goal is that you get paid for holding. That's how far we want to push the utility side of the collection.

Ohayo

Does this make me look fat?

Fun companion concept, unironically inspired by Clippy from Microsoft Office 97. (scroll for details)

Female villain design experimentation, featuring a preview of one of the rarest weapons in the collection: the bone whip.

This was the very first character design that we conceptualized for Majin. The goal was primarily to test our unique color palette and understand how much design complexity we can add. That last part is important, because in addition to our PFPs and anime, we are working on manga too. And for that you have to retain a certain degree of efficiency when the same character has to be drawn over and over again in different panels and poses. Which means; if the outfit or other traits are excessively complex, either consistency or quality will suffer in the long run — or you will slow down production significantly for potentially little gains in aesthetics. In the end, great design is always inspired by a degree of simplicity anyways. That's exactly what makes it so hard. Because you want unique and memorable characters, but at the same time have to achieve that without adding too many layers. For animations it's also advantageous if a character is immediately recognizable without the full depth of detail. Especially since certain studios are infamous for pretty sloppy frames, and because you cannot expect the technical execution later to honor the same artistic detail as the manga or PFPs. I learned a lot from these earlier stages of our creative processes and I'm happy to say that we significantly refined our artistic approach since then. Even the Fallen Angel design is still being reworked to minimize complexity and to maximize recognizability. It's worth spending time on this, because it will massively enhance the individual trait quality in our collection. The ideal outcome of balancing these opposites is more detail and harmony than the web3 space has ever seen before. And at the same time we streamline our manga production and secure a very high standard for our animations.

Early PFP concept

This was our first concept of the Smoking Duck. You can scroll right to discover its unique superpower 👀

Original companion design (Smoking Duck)

Members can now submit their vote in Discord on which character we should reveal next. You'll never guess which one leads so far 👹